Tandem Diabetes Care (NASDAQ: TNDM) and STAAR Surgical (NASDAQ:STAA) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and profitability.

Risk & Volatility

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Tandem Diabetes Care has a beta of 0.17, meaning that its stock price is 83% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, STAAR Surgical has a beta of 1.19, meaning that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Tandem Diabetes Care and STAAR Surgical, as provided by MarketBeat.

77.7% of STAAR Surgical shares are held by institutional investors. 20.9% of Tandem Diabetes Care shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of STAAR Surgical shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

STAAR Surgical has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Tandem Diabetes Care. STAAR Surgical is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Tandem Diabetes Care, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

STAAR Surgical beats Tandem Diabetes Care on 9 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

Tandem Diabetes Care Company Profile

Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. is a medical device company. The Company is engaged in designing, developing and commercializing products for people with insulin-dependent diabetes. The Company manufactures and sells three insulin pump products, which include t:slim Insulin Delivery System (t:slim), t:flex Insulin Delivery System (t:flex) and t:slim G4 Insulin Delivery System (t:slim G4). Its technology platform features Micro-Delivery Technology, a miniaturized pumping mechanism, which draws insulin from a flexible bag within the pump’s cartridge rather than relying on a syringe and plunger mechanism. It also features a software, which is a vivid color touch screen and a micro- universal serial bus (USB) connection that supports both a rechargeable battery and uploads to t:connect Diabetes Management Application (t:connect), its custom cloud-based data management application that provides display therapy management data from the pump and supported blood glucose meters.

STAAR Surgical Company Profile

STAAR Surgical Company designs, develops, manufactures and sells implantable lenses for the eye and delivery systems used to deliver the lenses into the eye. It operates in the ophthalmic surgical market segment. Its principal products are intraocular lenses used in cataract surgery and implantable collamer lenses used in refractive surgery. It makes lenses used across the world in corrective or refractive surgery, and makes lenses for use in surgery that treats cataracts. Its refractive surgery corrects the types of visual disorders that glasses or contact lenses have treated (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia). Its refractive surgery corrects the types of visual disorders that glasses or contact lenses have treated (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and presbyopia). As of December 30, 2016, it sold its products in more than 60 countries, with direct distribution in the United States, Canada, Japan and Spain, and independent distribution in the remainder of the world.